Aramcheck

Also worth looking at using a desiccant in the focuser draw-tube. I use these:- https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-dual-fit-desiccant-cap-red.html

I keep our newt OTA in a carrying bag & put a bin bag over the mount...

Cheers
Ivor

Thanks @Grumpy Martian it was good to see an episode(*) that dealt with issues surrounding light pollution!

Cheers
Ivor

(*) "Scuse Me While I Miss The Sky"

With GIMP I've found the successive stretching, as shown in this video, works quite well:- https://youtu.be/fkldylli094?t=1088

12 hours ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

However I dont think that all the lights should be on at night. After peak hours maybe the Council could consider every other Light being switched off to save Money as well as reduce carbon and LP??

In Urban areas there are also options to dim lights using a Central Management System & Lorawan, but the current BS-EN13201 specification only considers varying light levels on main roads (according to traffic rate) & not residential areas.

Floodlight football pitches are one of the "artificial light nuisances" under the Environment Protection Act 1990:-

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/artificial-light-nuisances-how-councils-deal-with-complaints

(Sadly streetlights are exempt)

Thanks @Ships and Stars for this thread!

Ivor

PS: BTW Our local council gets far more complaints about noise & trees than they do nuisance lighting...

Thanks @Tommohawk - that's really useful... Now I've just got to wait until the wind dies down!

Have you gone to the "Main" tab of the Configuration window & clicked "Save Settings"?

DOH! I've just realised I can use the DLSR timer...

Does anybody have any tips on the best camera settings to use for Prime focus images of the Moon. I have a Skywatcher 200dps & Canon EOS600D and up until now have used the Synscan handset to control the camera shutter.

I presume I'd need an intervalometer capable of short exposures? And use a low ISO setting / stack frames as per any other object?

The camera also has a video setting, but with lower resolution.

Any advice much appreciated!
Thanks
Ivor

I've been using two sheets of white acrylic & artists LED tracing pad. Early days, but seems to be working ok. I have found though that I get better results extracting the luminance from the Master Flat & using that when calibrating my lights.

I've been playing around with Pixinsight 3D Plot script which generates a 3D Isometric style plot of stacked/linear image. This is a cropped screen grab as full size TIFF was over 1Gb... (Crab Nebula)

Cheers
Ivor

I've manually stacked in Photoshop once (an image of M42 taken with a compact digital camera / eyepiece projection & EQ2 mount, where stars shapes were anything but)... and in Pixinsight I've used the Dynamic Alignment tool to manually align images when my stars were too out of focus to be otherwise be aligned/stacked. There is a 45 day free trial version of Pixinsight, so that might be an option... but it is pricey (and IMHO well worth the cost).

Cheers
Ivor

Had another go at the M42 data. I had 20 subs at 2/7/27 & 57 secs, so this is a combination of those processed in Pixinsight. The 2/7 sec subs were taken on a different night so had to crop image a bit tighter. Possibly over-cooked the dark dust detail...
 

You might find it useful to check out your local AS: http://northdevonastronomy.co.uk/  They will no doubt have observing sessions, where you can have a look at the different mounts available.

Personally I'd go with the best mount you can afford. I found that for generally getting acquianted with the  night sky, a pair of 10x50 binoculars (or a cheap grab & go scope), and a copy of Stellarium (http://stellarium.org/en_GB/) very useful.

Cheers
Ivor

I'm another fan of Pixinsight... I'd highly recommend the Warren A. Keller book "Inside Pixinsight" too, which is well worth getting.

They're back up now:- https://www.youtube.com/user/BrokenPik/videos

With star clusters is it best to use a lower ISO? (I've only used ISO 800 so far)

Ta
Ivor

17 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

Those are excellent captures! What kit did you use?

Skywatcher 200dps + EQ6 + Canon EOS 600D (astromodified) @ISO800. Various length subs & processed in Pixinsight.

Just glad we got some clear skies last week!

Thanks folks - it was me being an idiot... I think I just get flustered sometimes (especially with polar alignment problems eating into available imaging time & general lack of clear skies).

I've just had a trial session with the mount & having (in theory) located an object via one of the catalogues, it's slewing fine.

Appreciate the responses nonetheless!

Cheers
Ivor

Had usual alignment & framing issues... and on M81/82 + M1 clouds stopped play... but very much still a newbie to both DLSR and imaging in general...

Hi folks,

I'm still getting to grips with setup & alignment, but with limited clear skies & time, is there any way of making adjustments to the position of a target once I've gone through the setup routine & are using one of the Synscan catalogues to locate objects... Last week on holiday in the North York Moors, I had real difficulty getting targets in the centre of my DLSR. (Not so much a problem with small targets, but if they nearly fill the frame...)

I know I need to get better polar alignment, but even then surely there must be some way to make manual adjustments to scope position with the Synscan controller after finding a target?

I must be missing something very basic here!

Many thanks
Ivor

Whether  1 hour , 5 hours or more are stacked you will still end up in each case with a single digital image with a set dynamic range (about 14 bit for a Canon DSLR I think). Longer integration will give better Signal to Noise, but that's follows a law of diminishing return. At least that's how I understand it.

I found this talk by Dr Robin Glover (Sharpcap) useful. The background electron rate link in the video is http://tools.sharpcap.co.uk/  and if using a DLSR the read noise can be found here http://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_e.htm#Canon EOS 600D_14 (need to select your camera).
 

https://youtu.be/3RH93UvP358?t=77

A scan of Will Hay's "Through The Telescope: Astronomy For All" book can be found here:- https://archive.org/details/ThroughMyTelescope

Currently reading it & so far  the "once seen... never forgotten" line is genius.

Cheers
Ivor

2 hours ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Does anyone out there know when the first image of M42 was taken?

From a quick 'Google' it was first photographed in 1880 by Henry Draper. Several citations including https://www.facebook.com/svtelescopes/posts/day-in-history-september-30-1880-the-first-photo-of-orion-nebula-taken-by-henry-/10156668223133434/ which indicates a 51 min exposure & includes this photo:

I thought it might be worth posting my very first attempt at a DSO, taken back when we had a SW 130M & EQ-2 mount in March 2019. The pictures were taken with a Canon Sure Shot compact digital camera using  eye-piece projection & were so bad that there was no way they would stack. Initially I used an ancient copy of photoshop & manually stacked the jpg images... Today, for a laugh I had a go at reprocessing the raw files using Pixinsight (using Dynamic Alignment before integration (stacking)). Only 10 twenty-sec frames @ ISO 6400....
Quite a contrast in quality between this and the results (on other targets) since we've upgraded to a DLSR & and EQ-6 mount...
Hope it's of use to some newbies with EQ-2's out there.
Ivor